Sophomore wing Trevor Stumpe helps Wofford put it all together
Trevor Stumpe was the missing piece that Wofford basketball head coach Mike Young admitted he never knew he had.
“No idea,” Young said.
Stumpe, a redshirt sophomore, played only two games last season because of a back injury and was out the first five games of this season with a fractured ankle. He saw action in 17 games as a freshman, none after January, averaging 2.6 points with a Southern Conference high of five in a blowout victory against Western Carolina.
And yet now Stumpe is certainly a key ingredient to the Terriers’ success. He scored a career-high 17 points in 22 minutes Thursday night, 11 points in the first half of an eventual 92-53 steamroll against VMI at Richardson Indoor Stadium.
Stump has started the last five games and in the two against Southern Conference teams had a combined 32 points, 14 rebounds, five assists and four steals. He’s averaged 11.7 points since scoring 16 in a late-November win at Coastal Carolina.
“I knew he was going to add to our team because he had a really good preseason. But I honestly didn’t know he was going to be this valuable,” Young said. “Fletcher Magee (who scored 25 points Thursday and is averaging 24.1) has been on another planet. Cameron Jackson (12.5 points and 6.5 rebounds) has been great. But we might look back and say that Stumpe, as well as (senior guard) Derrick Brooks, had as much to do with flipping this thing around. We weren’t very good in those first two weeks.”
Wofford (9-5, 1-1) has won six of the past seven headed into Saturday’s 7 p.m. home game against The Citadel. Included in that stretch was a win against Georgia Tech and the monumental one Dec. 20 at fourth-ranked defending national champion North Carolina.
Stumpe, a 6-foot-5 wing from Plainfield, Ill., got hurt only about two weeks before the start of this season.
“All through the offseason when I was working out, I had visions of our opener at home against South Carolina,” Stumpe said. “I had my parents coming in and everything. So it was a real bummer. …When I got back, it took a few games just to get my feet under me and start feeling good. I had to get reorganized with my teammates again.”
Stumpe is becoming the second main scoring option from the outside to complement Magee, who leads the country in 3-pointers per game and is third in percentage. Magee finished 6-for-8 from long range Thursday and Stumpe was 4-for-6. They were a combined 8-for-10 in the first half to blow it open early.
“We definitely missed him,” said junior guard Bobby Perez, who is a roommate of both Stumpe and Magee. “He’s given us a spark. His basketball IQ is off the charts. His defense is great. The spacing that he gives us, being able to shoot the ball, is something that we needed. With Fletcher and him on the court at the same time, I would not want to guard that. Fletch is actually setting some ball screens for Trevor. That’s tough to defend.”
Stumpe, although shooting 50 percent overall and 42 percent on 3-pointers, still considers himself a blue-collar player in the mold of Ryan Sawvell, who last year as a senior at that position led Wofford in rebounding and averaged nearly 10 points.
“I definitely watch film of Ryan,” Stumpe said. “We still talk and he gives me advice. I’m trying to come into that role. As far as scoring, I don’t necessarily feel a burden to help Fletcher. We have, in my opinion, the best post player in the conference in Cam. I just feel like my job is to help other guys, set screens, make good passes and knock down the occasional jumper.”
“Sawvell was a better rebounder,” Young said. “But Stumpe brings some things to the table that Ryan didn’t – and that’s not to take anything away from Saw Daddy. We loved him. Trevor is just so ball-savvy, gives us another shooter on the floor and he’s as tough as a $3 steak. He’s so smart. He picks up things that we haven’t even talked about. I’m like, ‘Holy cow. That’s really good.’ He has helped us tremendously.”